Practice Makes Perfect Heartbreaks
by kitty-re
Summary: “This is just to practice Hermione, okay?” She could hardly say Ginny hadn’t warned her but love lost in rehearsals seems as real as the thing. Femmeslash HermionexGinny.


**Practice Makes Perfect Heartbreaks  
****by kitty-re**

"_This is just to practice Hermione, okay?" She could hardly say Ginny hadn't warned her but love lost in rehearsals seems as real as the thing. Femmeslash HermionexGinny. _

I never would of said "I love you" if I knew that those were going to be the words that made you end it all.

It was my worst fear, my nightmare coming to life in front of me – I had dug around in my chest for my hidden, scarred heart and placed in on my sleeve just like you had asked me to for months now, I found it hard Ginny – but for you I did it.

You took my heart and acted like you loved it, told me you'd treasure it forever – was this the beginning of your plans? Was this the moment you decided to tear down my world, or had you made the choice before?

I never thought you'd do it, I never thought you could. You were too beautiful to break my heart. I thought people that were in love don't hurt each other.

Maybe I was wrong, maybe pain and love do go hand in hand.

Or maybe you never loved me at all.

I hate nights like these, where all I can do is question everything we ever had – pour through the memories in my mind and try to remember if the look in your eyes that I could never quite decode was regret at every action. Did you wish my hands were his? Was the nights we spent together merely attempts for you to fill the void that Harry had left in you when you were hit with love at first sight?

I hate the fact that I can't go to anyone about it. Nobody can console me and say that you're a good person; nobody can tell me that they could tell our love was real. It was a hidden romance; one that was so arousing at the time now seems like mere convenience for you. You loved me by night and slowly worked your way into Harry's arms by the day; with strategies so delicate and _you_ that the only way I can see them is because if anything our time together has let me get to know you better.

I've memorized every expression your face can pull; from the tiniest tint of jealousy to the surging brink of passion. I know every curve on your body and every spot that can finally break your silence and make you moan. I can bring you to the edge and pull you back just to push you right over in a much more tainted way than before.

This was not a lustful, illicit affair – this was love and as much as you could push to deny it now, I know it was real.

It was real in the moments where we lied next to each other in Grimmauld Place; hands running through each others hair, exploring their ways across our bodies, tracing patterns as light as butterfly wings. How many times we tried to count and recount all the freckles on your body, but always we'd get distracted and lose count and have to start all over again. I never did mind, I could spend my life counting those little brown flecks across your rose and cream skin.

You were my weakness and you always knew it. From the first kiss,

"_This is just to practice Hermione, okay? For when we're older and have boyfriends and stuff we'll need to know how to kiss."_

To the first time,

_You ripped off my school shirt in such haste that a button went skidding across the corridor floor. I trailed my hands up your skirt, traveling up the path I had been burning for so long. You whispered my name into my ear with such want – no, __**need**__ – that I had to have you there and then.  
Who knew that my first time would be behind a tapestry? Who knew that it would be with the only Weasley girl?_

We explored places that neither of us had ever explored, experienced things we never imagined we'd experience. I still remember the long nights spent wide awake in the Room of Requirement; it became a ritual – the only place where we weren't afraid of being found. The room guarded our secret as close as we ourselves did, how it would tear apart friendships – Ron had always had a thing for me, and Harry would never know what side to take. You encouraged our forbidden love even more than I did; I thought it was because you cared for me and my relationships with my friends but I see now it was to keep the option of Harry open.

How could he ever love you as much as you loved him when he thought you were lesbian. _"Bisexual: people just don't seem to grasp the concept I swear."_ I agreed, but for different reasons.

We were the same you and I; both so open to the possibility of love that it didn't matter what way, form or gender it came in.

But I'll tell you a secret I was never able to tell you when we were together; every night that we spent together made me believe more and more that you're the only one for me. That it couldn't just be a coincidence how perfectly our bodies fitted together. How perfect our minds fitted together.

I thought we could be forever; Hermione Granger – believing in a forever! It was a bad time to lose my sensible nature.

But you had changed me in so many ways, and just as I was beginning to believe that maybe stories could end in a "happy ever after" ours stopped and fell off the page. I could feel my heart drop through my chest and shatter onto the floor; my soul left my body and watched as I stared, shocked at the girl I loved passionately kiss Harry Potter.

I thought it was a childhood crush. I thought you had grown out of it. I thought you had grown in love with me and forgotten him.

But as your hands and delicate wrists moved up to sweep their way through his hair just like you did mine I realized it all. It was as if I was dying and my life was flashing before my eyes; our relationship had died and all its memories were soaring through my mind at a million miles an hour.

"_This is just to practice." _Our lips coming together on your bedroom floor. My hands on your breasts in the toilet cubicle. Your fingers pulling my hair to kiss me deeper. The look on your face after we first truly spent the night together. Waking up to your red hair on my pillow at Christmas, at Easter, in the summer holidays over and over again. Your lips forming the words _"I love you."_

My soul was pulled back into my body, heavier than it once seemed and I forced myself to smile as Harry looked over your shoulder to check his faces of his friends. I beat past his green eyes and waited for you to turn around, but you didn't move your head from resting on his chest. Together for over a year and you couldn't even turn around to face me.

After minutes I went to our place, waiting for you to come, it's how it always is in the movies. You were supposed to meet me there, tell me it was all an accident – tell me that you went to hug him but he kissed you and you couldn't very well slap him down in front of the entire house.

But you didn't come.

I waited up all night, willing the room to let you in every time I heard a scuffle of shoes on the hallway floor but you never came.

I left when the sun rose to go back to the Common Room and it was there that you met me. I knew it was over before you opened your mouth, you had pulled your face into remorse but your eyes had the sparkle of happiness that I had never owned.

"I'm sorry." You had said simply and of course I had nodded in understanding. I could never question your motives – looking like I already knew the answer was my defense mechanism, my punch back after you pulled the rug out from under my feet. I wanted you to believe I knew something you didn't, but like always I couldn't trick you and the knowledge in your eyes had too much sympathy for me to bear.

You always knew my weaknesses, found them out in the darkened nights at Grimmauld Place and the lightened sunrises in the Room of Requirement. You always knew I loved you and would do anything for you.

_This is just practice_, you could hardly say you didn't warn me.

You needed to know how to kiss a boy.  
How to run your fingers through his hair with the right amount of force to make him kiss you that little bit deeper.

You needed to know how to spend the night with him.  
To train your muscles to be able to spend hours together and not be sore. Wake up next to him still looking beautiful as hell and know it.

You needed to know how to make a boy fall in love with you.  
So that you feel like you'll never be alone in the world. So that when you finally find the boy that you want to spend your life with you have him fallen hard for you in a month or two, on his knees with his heart scraped out of his chest – presented just for you.

You needed to know how to break it just right in case the time came around to let go. How to pick up it up and shatter it into a thousand pieces and leave him questioning each one whether it was ever real or not.

You needed to know, and I needed you – the heartbreak was meant to be.


End file.
